Anyway, why is it that only right-wing news outlets have this as their news-story? I can find no mainstream sources on this.
Because if you read the link in the OP, it's clear that what's going on is a liberal Senator asked Lynch to look into treating big oil like big tobacco was a couple decades ago and she basically said "that's interesting" so as to mollify him without committing to actually doing anything.
Maybe under President Sanders it would get past the "that's interesting" stage, but Bernie's not getting the nomination, so there really is no story here for at least nine more years. Which is good, since even if there is a case to be made, which I doubt, the tobacco settlement is proof positive that this is a horrible way of dealing with the problem. Big tobacco didn't suffer, the money was largely frittered away on other uses, so it was effectively a way to tax tobacco use without passing a tax at a time when even raising tobacco taxes was politically unpopular.
